Date: Sun, 9 Feb 2003 13:49:37 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Jane & Dennis Coskren Subject: Re: Bird Orders MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi-- The new taxonomy is that of Charles Sibley and Burt Monroe ("Distribution and Taxonomy of Birds of the World", published in 1990). It's based on DNA hybridization studies by Sibley and Ahlquist. I don't think it's been universally adopted; in particular, I don't know if it's been adopted by the AOU. It is probably a much closer approach to the true relationshps of the groups than is the old classification. TDCoskren ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marcus James" To: Sent: Saturday, February 08, 2003 8:28 PM Subject: Re: [MDOSPREY] Bird Orders > It did say all those birds are in the one order, Ciconiiformes. Cormorants and grebes and sandpipers? I checked it a few times to see if I was misreading it. All those birds are in one order, according to the Patuxent InfoCenter. > I have a list with all the different orders, families and species found in North America. I'll admit it's a little old, 1999, but it shows that most of the birds I mentioned are not found in one order. I was wondering if that has changed? If most of those orders are now 'suborders', or something like that? > Norm Saunders wrote:Marcus James asks: > ----- Original Message ----- > > I was at the Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter, and > > when I looked up the taxonomy of the Anhinga, I read that > > it belonged to the order Ciconiiformes, and there was a > > list of different of birds which are also in that order, including > > albatrosses, auks, cormorants, diurnal birds of prey, grebes, > > herons, loons, penguins and shorebirds. > > > > I thought all those birds belonged to different orders, but I > > might be thinking of old ornithology. Do they all belong to > > the same order now? When did ornithologists come up with > > that conclusion? > > Is it possible you may be confusing order and family? Orders give us a very > broad-brush description of a group of birds, which is then broken into the > groups you were mentioning at the family level of detail. Most field guides > group birds by families and seldom mention order since that concept groups > so many seemingly disparate families together. > > I'm sure others will not hesitate to jump into the discussion as well. > While they do, I'll compare the last few AOU checklists just to make sure > I'm not saying something totally wrong. > > Best, > Norm > > ======================================================================= > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= > > > --------------------------------- > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now > > ======================================================================= > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= > ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================